SUMMARY: On May 18, 2006, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking with request for comments
on revisions to 12 CFR part 327 (see 71 FR 28790). The rulemaking
proposed to make the deposit insurance assessment system react more
quickly and more accurately to changes in institutions' risk profiles,
and in so doing to eliminate several causes for complaint by insured
depository institutions. The proposed rule also would make changes
necessitated by the recently enacted Federal Deposit Insurance Reform
Act. The FDIC is extending the comment period on that notice of
proposed rulemaking to August 16, 2006. This action will allow
interested persons additional time to analyze the issues and prepare
their comments.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before August 16, 2006.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by RIN number 3064-AD03
by any of the following methods:
Agency Web site:
http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/federal/propose.html
Mail: Robert E. Feldman, Executive Secretary, Attention:
Comments/Legal ESS, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 550 17th
Street, NW., Washington, DC 20429.
Hand Delivered/Courier: The guard station at the rear of
the 550 17th Street Building (located on F Street), on business days
between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m.
E-mail: Comments@FDIC.gov. Include
RIN number 3064-AD03 in
the subject line of the message.
Instructions: Submissions received must include the agency name and
RIN for this rulemaking. Comments received will be posted without
change to
http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/federal/propose.html,
including any personal information provided.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On May 18, 2006, the FDIC requested comment
on its proposal to make certain procedural and operational changes to
its risk-based assessments regulations. The proposed rule would provide
for assessment collection after each quarter ends, would require
institutions with $300 million or more in assets to determine their
assessment bases using average daily deposit balances, and would
eliminate the float deduction used to determine the assessment base. In
addition, the rules governing assessments of institutions that go out
of business would be simplified; newly insured institutions would be
assessed for the assessment period in which they become insured;
prepayment and double payment options would be eliminated; institutions
would have 90 days from each quarterly certified statement invoice to
file requests for review and requests for revision; and the rules
governing quarterly certified statement invoices would be adjusted for
a quarterly assessment system and for a three-year retention period
rather than the current five-year period.

[[Page 36719]]

The proposed rule to make these procedural and operational changes
to the risk-based assessments regulations is just one of three notices
of proposed rulemaking to implement certain aspects of the Reform Act
published by the FDIC on the same date. At that time, the FDIC also
published proposed rules on dividends (see 71 FR 28804) and the one-
time assessment credit (see 71 FR 28809). In addition, the Reform Act
requires the FDIC to prescribe rules on the designated reserve ratio
and risk-based assessments. Those proposed rules are expected to be
published in the coming weeks.
The FDIC has determined that it would be most effective for comment
purposes to have a longer period of overlap between the pending
proposed rules on credits, dividends, and operational changes to the
risk-based assessments regulations, and the upcoming proposed rules on
the designated reserve ratio and risk-based assessments. All of these
proposals relate in one way or another to risk-based assessments, and
commenters should have a period of time during which they could, if
they so choose, review all of the proposals together.
Recently, ING Bank, fsb and Nationwide Bank requested that the FDIC
extend the closing date for comments on the pending proposed rules to
coincide with the closing date for comments on the upcoming proposed
rules. While the FDIC understands the concerns expressed, a 30-day
extension should provide sufficient comment period overlap to permit
all of the proposals to be reviewed together, giving interested parties
90 days to comment on the three pending proposals and allowing FDIC
staff to consider all comments in a timely manner.